Duchess Erza Stroumhammer
Duchess Erzalynne Stroumhammer
From two hundred feet up in the air the city looked so small to Erza. Her morning routine was absolute, hot tea steeped dark, her small ceramic tea cup resting on a perfectly circular dish that rested on the edge of the balcony that was connected to her personal bedchambers. The cool north wind brushed past her face and lifted the large strawberry curls of her voluminous hair. After her tea she would tame it but for now it fell down to the back of her knees until the wind pulled it back from her. Eyes of dark amber orange watched the coming sun with excitement. The reflections along the turrets of the outer wall would hit her first, followed by the small lakes that the farms used for their ducks. It would then dance along the more extravagant buildings; the university campuses, the pet projects of the many engineers and skilled artisans that reside within her walls. Until, without warning it would reach her bright and furious. Alighting her dark skin with orange fury of the autumn months. She winced, the sun was too fierce, but she did not pull away; instead she took a long draw from her cup. Stretching her back reveling in each loud crack that echoed out she downed the rest of her tea and retreated into the blue steel tower to continue her routine and prepare herself for the day.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Erza is a half-dwarf in her prime. She has some old wounds and scars along her body from her experiments into artificing and the arcane arts as well as some gashes along her leg from debris during the battle with the great worm. Beyond this she keeps relatively active within her lab, and though she isn't out exercising and exploring as much as she used to she is managing to keep herself in travel fit form with her experiments and patrolling the city of D'amorand.
Body Features
Erza has very dark brown skin like her father and the other dwarves of clan Stroumhammer. She is stocky, only a little taller than a dwarf and more heavy set than a normally in shape human. She is relatively strong for her profession as a wizard, years and years of tinkering with mechanical inventions have kept her arms tightly wound.
Facial Features
Erza has a scar down her right eyebrow, breaking the blonde hair in about a quarter inch gap. There are some faint scars on her left cheek as well but they have faded greatly over the past few decades.
Most notable about her face is her amber eyes, a clear indicator of her dwarven blood.
Identifying Characteristics
Most notable of Erza is her amber eyes and long strawberry blonde hair that she wears in three braids that comes down to the back of her knee. She braids them in the same style that many male dwarves, particularly those of the Stroumhammer clan, braid their beards.
Physical quirks
Erza often gets very restless if she is forced to sit too long without being able to get comfortable. It often sets her foot thumping against the ground until she is able to get into a position where she can work uninterrupted.
Apparel & Accessories
Erza wears a necklace of cold adamantine, it has a pendant of mithril and silver; octagonal base with the silver in the center resting as an embossed inverted pentagram. As for other jewelry her left ear is pierced with four separate onyx bands that go down the length of the helix, and a bone septum piercing that is the sharpened rib of a dire bear her mother killed when she was young. On her left hand she has two rings, one a silver band with a diamond-cut emerald, the other a simply band of onyx. One is a ring of arming that contains her weapons, magical robes, and components for her spells; while the other is actually her primary Artificing construct, trapped in a pocket-dimension until it is required. She can summon this construct named Athjar at will from its pocket dimension. Her right hand has one ring on her middle finger, a golden serpent coiled around itself. It allows her to cast Acid Arrow a few times per day.
As for her attire, Ezra normally wears an overcoat of leather, cut like a vest in the front but nearly as long as her hair made from imported hides from Umoven, dyed black dire crocodiles are her preferred hides. She wears finely made white button up tops that normally have interwoven vertical lines of black fabric. Large belts of horse hide with silver buckles, that hold up finely made jet black hose. Large brown boots with thick gray straps. This is her 'civilian' gear, fine nobleman's clothes of high quality. When she uses her ring of arming to switch clothes she wears magnificently woven violet robes that shifts to dark blue, they constantly change their colors and seem to be in flux, a mithril diadem with a sapphire, as well as magical boots that give her the ability to misty step a few times per day. It also has a series of wands that she keeps on her belt and her artificing tools required for those spells and abilities. Her spellbook is also contained within this ring and is only summoned out when she needs to perform rituals, or to prepare the spells for the day.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Erza was born during the years of The Gem Wars; a tumultuous time in the north when many cities fell to the hands of Ras'al Khan leaving them empty shells and ruins of their previous glory. Karaendall managed to avoid much of this thanks to the positioning of its city and a strong military presence that the wizard, who at the time was just beginning his conquest was unwilling to contest.
After surviving to the age of 16, she was enrolled in the Arcane University in Warden. Spending 15 years at the school she returned to D'amorand as skilled artificer and wizard. Upon her return she focused on modifying and upgrading the tower at Road's End, and eventually took over control of the Duchy with the death of her father; Erendal Stroumhammer who at the time had passed well into old age after a hundred and eighty years of life.
As a half-dwarf her life expectancy is much longer than that of humans and though she is approaching middle age she has yet to take on a permanent partner. It has been rumored that she has taken many suitors but always turned them away. She does not allow this to affect her work as she tends to business for the duchy, knowing that there is a slue of cousins who are all able to succeed her should the worst happen.
So she lives her life within the tower, interacting with the people who come to her and handling the busywork of the city of D'amorand and the wider reaches of the Duchy, tinkering in the upper half of the tower which have been converted to her personal domicile.
Gender Identity
Erza is a cis woman.
Sexuality
Erza is almost exclusively an objectophile, she engages in sexual activities with the automatons she creates with her artificing magic. Having specifically created a few 'companions' that remain within her labs and private sleeping quarters. Also she has designed a number of 'toys' which she animates and can manipulate with simple commands.
She has been known to have a romantic partner in her youth, during her time at the Arcane University, but who they were/are is not something that she has ever confided. Very few know of her particular sexual tastes and those that too elect not to judge; but it has caused a lot of concern with her family and the dwarven clan that shares her name within Konbul as she has not produced a proper heir.
Education
Erza spent her youth, her time as a young child, training specifically for a war that was just beginning to wrap up, and afterward learning how to properly protect herself from the remnants that war left behind. She was a skilled wizard by the age of thirteen, able to cast basic spells and with the wealth of her family and their dedication to helping her protect herself, had created an expansive spell book of magic. Even going so far as to create a spell or two of her own (most famously being Erza's Shocking Hammer ).
Taking this initial education with her to The Arcane University of Warden she discovered the journals and teachings of a dwarven noble from Gerame named Magnus Baltsone. Taking his notes and using over a decade of study she managed to become an accomplished artificer, though she focused less on creating spell infusions which seemed to be Magnus's specialty and instead on animating artificial creations.
Returning home she began preparing her laboratory for work while taking classes arranged by her father in the ways of managing the realm and proper political etiquette that was passed over in her youth due to the war times she was born into. She managed a passable level of proper education, but it was never quite as refined as her father would have liked before his passing.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Erza is a skilled artificer, one of a few in the world as of the current day. Skilled particularly in creating magical constructs.
Beyond this she was the youngest person to create a University published spell in nearly four hundred years. Having created three spells before her tenure at the Arcane University and two while she was there, as well as creating many practices in the school of artificing that are now taught in her absence.
Her spells, known to many practitioners of the arcane arts are: Erza's Repulsive Shield, Erza's Shocking Hammer, Erza's Splendid Domecile, Erza's Lightning Shroud, and Erza's Skittering Servos.
She has created other practices for granting autonomy and animating inanimate objects but the details of which are still quite sparse.
Failures & Embarrassments
One of the greatest failures in Erza's career came from a surprise attack on the most north western of the twelve surrounding cities (Ysborough). A shifting earthquake along the Shattered Straight caused abnormal activity in the area and ended up waking a monstrous and powerful purple worm like creature that would come to be called 'Gryx'zalon' or the Shadowed Serpent in common. The creature ravaged the city and when the call came for aid, a young Erza hesitated with the amount of forces she should have committed. This hesitation to commit the appropriate number of troops resulted in a large number of casualties for the Riders of the North and the civilians of Ysborough.
Though she was very young, and green to her position as Duchess the hesitation haunts her to this day. As well as the fact that Gryx'zalon was not killed in the conflict, but merely pushed to the point of retreating back north to where it came.
Mental Trauma
The aforementioned failure weighs heavily on Erza's mind. She joined the forces that went to reinforce Ysborough, and though she had been trained for years to handle combat situations in the wake of the city's almost total devastation, it's broken walls, and the just the raw mass of the dead has left its horrible marks on her mind. She suffers from PTSD that is often triggered by mentions of the worm, imagery of it, and the city of Ysborough itself.
She managed to oversee the repairs but suffered near constant anxiety attacks after the adrenaline rush of the actual battle. Eventually it got to the point where she dared not go back to the city itself, a fact that it's representatives visiting D'amorand are quick to use against her.
Intellectual Characteristics
Erza is incredibly witty and sharp, keen eyed and skilled at reading people. Her disposition and lack of 'proper noble' upbringing has left her with a sense of unity with the common folk allowing her to easily and effortlessly converse with them on a personal level. As such she is quite trusted within the confines of her city and those who know her or have spent time in her counsel respect her opinion and believe that she has their best interest at heart.
Morality & Philosophy
Erza is a kindly lord, but also an aloof one. Due to the nature of her upbringing she often has wandering thoughts and neglects her work as Duchess until it is forced upon her by her advisors. She believes with a 'go with the flow' mentality and likes helping people if she can and it doesn't take way with what she wants to do at any given moment.
Social
Family Ties
Erza has many cousins that are quite distant. Few of them choose to live within the capital where their cousin has all the power. Their cousins either live in Konbul, the surrounding twelve cities, or are out in the world on their own adventures.
She keeps in close contact with the clan within the mountain and is well liked by the current clan leader: Edellarn Stroumhammer, though her lack of a proper heir and tendency to lock herself up in her tower has caused issues with the elders of the clan. She keeps in touch with spells of sending to the clan, in particular Edellarn, but only tells them as much as she feels they need to know.
Religious Views
In her youth she was raised under the realm of The Four Hammers, and though she still respects those gods and their ways, Erza found her passion in the worship of Furya the Goddess of Magics. She keeps a symbol to the goddess around her neck at all times, made and enchanted with powerful abjuration magic by the Archmage of the Sultarn Tower; When'shielle, who had been a close friend to her during her time at the Arcane University.
Mannerisms
One of Erza's biggest tells is how she chews her lower lip when she's in a situation she doesn't properly know how to handle or if her anxieties are starting to get the better of her.
Current Location
Species
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Duchess of Kaerendall
Wizard of Road's End
The Spark of Invention
Birthplace
D'amorand
Children
Current Residence
D'amorand
Gender
Female
Eyes
dark amber, wide eyes that are shadowed by bushy eyebrows
Hair
Long wild strawberry blonde that is a mess, often worn in three tight braids
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
a chocolate brown
Height
5'4
Weight
195lbs.
Aligned Organization
Other Affiliations
Ruled Locations
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